Olympic athlete, helicopter pilot, astronaut… what was your dream job as a kid?

This week, Linkedin interviewed 8,000 Linkedin members to see if they could find a statistical correlation between what the employees do now and their childhood dream jobs. While there didn’t appear to be an overwhelming match at first, they did uncover interesting facts that could help you put the job networking site to even greater use.

The survey took jobs from around the world, but found that the top dream jobs for American children are teachers, athletes, pilots, and veterinarians.  About 33%of Linkedin users wound up with their exact childhood dream job, but a total of 73% of users were either at their dream job, in a related field, or using a skill they believed to be part of their dream job.

“The dream jobs we aspire to as children are a window into our passions and talents,” says Nicole Williams, LinkedIn connection director. “Identifying and understanding those passions are key to improving our performance and enjoyment of the jobs we currently do even if they aren’t specific to the careers we dreamed of as kids.”

If LinkedIn users want to list their dream job, or take advantage of Linkedin’s new social features to share how they wound up in their current position, it can be a good conversation-starter with other users. It also allows members to learn how to advance in a current profession by seeing how others did it.

What was your childhood dream job? And how closely does it match up to what you’re doing now? Tell us on Facebook.